As many online shoppers know, ordering products from the Internet can sometimes be a gamble. This is often true for retail clothing. Many consumers order garments online in what is advertised in their “typical” size only to find that the garment does not fit when it arrives. With the increasing number of styles and manufacturers of clothing available today, standard size information is becoming an increasingly poor indicator of the likelihood that a particular-sized garment will fit. Indeed, 50-70% of returns are due to poor fit, and 72% of people who do not shop online are afraid of poor fit and look.
There have been attempts to address this problem for both consumers and retailers since online shopping became available, including those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,850,222; 6,546,309; 7,479,956; 7,548,794; 7,617,016; 7,714,912; 7,953,648; 8,174,521; and 8,275,590; as well as described in U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2009/0115777; 2014/0176565; and 2014/0201023. Despite these contributions, however, the current online retail clothing shopping experience does not provide options for size selection that are any more reliable than its predecessor, the mail order catalogue. Thus, there remains a need in the art for technology that provides for more informed size selection during online apparel shopping.